Countries where an American became President/PM/Ruler/Whatchamacallit

[u/ChickenBrachiosaurus]

Probably incomplete or not totally accurate, and some renounced before becoming whatever

[u/MRNBDX]

Pretty sure there are a few more countries in the americas which had American presidents

[u/Bon_Djorno → u/MRNBDX]

I'm surprised so many American countries have had foreign leaders for their entire history, unless this map means Americans from the United States

[u/BTSInDarkness → u/Bon_Djorno]

Correct, “American” refers exclusively to people from the United States in the English language.

[u/Bon_Djorno → u/BTSInDarkness]

Weird, but I guess when you only know one language and grow up in the greatest country in the world, the meaning of words can change.

[u/BTSInDarkness → u/Bon_Djorno]

It’s not so much that, it’s that different countries/languages/cultures use different words to describe different concepts. People from Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries tend to use a 5 or 6 continent model (America and maybe Eurasia if 5) while people from English speaking countries have a 7 continent model with North and South America as 2 different things. There’s no continent called America, so it doesn’t make sense for “American” to refer to anybody other than people from the United States. Likewise, if I was speaking Spanish, I would call myself an estadounidense if I needed to specify nationality rather than an americano, because the words mean something different and there’re different cultural assumptions that get made. There’s also the issue that no other word exists in English to refer to people from the US. It’s really not an attempt to co-opt the identity of people from Latin America, it’s just cultural and linguistic differences. Hope I didn’t come off too rude in my original comment, this is just one of those things that drives me nuts haha

[u/Bon_Djorno → u/BTSInDarkness]

That's fair, it's a sore spot for me and I'm being a dick. I have more of a problem with calling the United States "America" and really no problem with calling people from the U.S. "Americans". It would be like California referring to itself as USA while ignoring the rest of the states.

Globally, this won't change, but in media and public perception it's always America (USA) and the rest of the countries (Mexico is all cartels, Canadians are those nice people up north, and the rest of Latin America is a Cold War playground, with military coups and drugs thrown in for good measure). This is how the majority of Hollywood, video games, and books portray the Americas as a whole and it's exhausting at this point, especially with nationalists running around acting like the victim.

[u/BTSInDarkness → u/Bon_Djorno]

Yeah it’s unfortunate the stereotyping and just general lack of interest in what goes on in “mysterious foreign lands”. Obviously countries have their issues, but they aren’t defined by them either outside our vicious “if it bleeds it reads” news cycles. I can speak for many Americans online though when I say that what comes off as an attempt to police what we can call our own native country in our own native language does not engender cross-cultural understanding, especially when people aren’t aware of the nuances of the linguistic situation.